It is not a secret that buying, owning, and maintaining a car costs a significant amount of money. Especially now, when gas prices are high and continue to increase. What if you could avoid paying as much as you do right now? Even while still getting to where you need to go?

Many city dwellers can. In fact, many people from Chicago are already dumping their vehicles and becoming reliant on rideshare. Current research has shown that it is in fact cheaper to use services such as Uber and Lyft in cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, among others.

However, some people are hesitant to use these services due to all of the negative news stories reporting violent crimes involving drivers of such services. However, some services such as Uber are introducing safety features to help riders feel more comfortable reaching someone in case of emergency. It also helps hold drivers accountable by creating a stronger sense of authority, of being watched.

There are many benefits to using these rideshare services in bigger cities. In bigger cities drivers tend to have to pay to park their vehicles in addition to other typical costs such as gas, repairs, affordable auto insurance, etc.

On the other hand, some reports say that the cost of using rideshare will not be cheaper than owning a car until 10 years from now. But, it just depends what is best for the individual budget. In fact, news sites have even developed calculators to see if ridesharing is beneficial to your budget. Another detail that the calculator includes is the cost of time. A detail often overlooked by the monetary costs of things, but a detail equally, if not more valuable to people.

Additionally, there are options to “pool” with other rideshare users to eliminate even more costs. This option is not always the best depending on the intentions of your trip, but can be especially helpful for the commute to work, for example.

The increase in regular rideshare users creates another problem, unfortunately. The amount of cars picking up passengers has disrupted the flow of traffic in certain regions of the city, especially in Chicago. They have even increased fines of traffic violations.

The tickets and gas prices also seem to be turning away some drivers as they pay out of pocket for each item, in addition to possible rideshare insurance. But, drivers who discover that there is a growth in the city population using their services may attract attention to drivers hoping to make more money.

This then creates an issue for rideshare companies who are already struggling to pay their workers. Companies such as Uber who are providing benefits to European drivers, the costs will not go down anytime soon for them.

Overall, it may benefit the individual to utilize rideshare instead of owning a personal vehicle. But, there are many factors to take into account before switching over, both personally and the industry in whole. Rideshare is undoubtedly a hot topic at this time and does not appear to be dying down anytime soon.

Content marketing is more than just a popular buzzword in the Internet marketing industry. The concept of content marketing underscores a powerful technique to promote a business on the Internet. By creating great content (such as a video, article, or infographic) and marketing that content (via Facebook, Google+, or StumbleUpon,) your business can take advantage of many opportunities to connect with potential customers.

The methods behind content marketing offer limitless channels to exploit your ideas. In short, you can create content in various forms and distribute it many different ways. And just a limitless as the channels to market your content are the potential benefits for your business.

All types of companies can improve their marketing efforts by producing and sharing awesome content. In fact, marketing software provider Kapost has found through its research that per dollar, content marketing contributes to three times more leads that tradition online advertising, such as paid search. For this reason, creating a content marketing strategy can be a momentous game-changer for your business.

Although content marketing offers a ton of advantages (some of which are nearly impossible to track,) there are three major benefits that your business can realize:

As the foundation to marketing your content on the web, building brand awareness is further enhanced when the audience is engaged. This audience engagement is what fuels respect for your brand and bolsters a potential relationship. As a result, the quality and relevancy of your content is paramount. Any content you publish is a reflection of your business and its brand, so you’ll want to be creative and use the right context that relates to your target audience.

Some of the highest levels of audience engagement derive from visually-based content. Videos are a powerful medium to communicate to a potentially massive audience. And by optimizing videos for better search engine exposure (also known as search engine optimization or “SEO”), the overall marketing potential skyrockets. Also effective in the visual content category are images, infographics, cartoons and comics. Exercise your creativity and produce a compelling form of content that can help build awareness in your brand.

Inbounding Traffic to Your Site

The cornerstone of content marketing is to inbound traffic to your site. Marketing your content is a very powerful way to promote your niche or unique selling proposition. As long as you present the right calls to action, the individuals that interact with your content will be more apt to visit your website.

This form of traffic is unique because of the prior interaction that users experience with your content. The best ways to inbound quality traffic to your site is use your content to inform and educate your target audience. Addressing relevant issues, questions, and concerns is a good way to achieve this. For example, a criminal defense attorney may benefit from publishing an article about ‘what to do when faced with DUI charges.’ Any traffic coming from that article could very well be a highly qualified lead for the attorney’s legal services.

Generating Natural Link Popularity for SEO

When content goes viral, it tends to attract a lot of social attention. People usually link to popular content (link popularity,) and as a result, the content can earn a high level of authority. From a SEO standpoint, if a webpage has a high level of authority, then the outbound links coming from that page will be more powerful. This concept of SEO (commonly referred to as “link bait”) is one of the many effective approaches of content marketing.

Think of your wonderful piece of content as a link bait for your SEO efforts. In almost any form of content, whether a video, article, or graphic, you can typically include a link that directs back to your site. For instance, graphics and videos will usually always have supportive text or an author attribution. Here you can include a bit about who you are, as well as a link back to your website. If your content generates a lot of buzz and people start linking to it, the SEO value of your content will only become more powerful.

Developing Your Strategy

Putting together a successful content marketing strategy will depend on the resources you have on hand. You’ll want to determine which types of content are going to be the most relevant and effective to connect to your target audience. Additionally, you’ll also want to pinpoint the ideal publishing platforms and social media sites to market and promote your content. All strategies for marketing content are unique, so you’ll need to get creative as to how you approach the strategy for your business.

One thing there is no shortage of on the internet is opportunities to gamble. We are spoilt for choice, whether your fancy is for betting on sports, playing virtual card games or bingo. One of the things that makes internet gambling so potentially dangerous is that it is easily available for 24 hours a day. The real danger comes when you combine this factor with the fact that it is so easy to feel detached from the reality of money spent online. Gradually racking up a debt online does not feel the same as handing over hard earned cash from our wallet, so it is that much easier to lose track of how your online spending is mounting up.

For these reasons, debt problems from internet gambling are on the increase. In this article I hope to clarify some of the legal issues around online gambling, as well as providing some advice on dealing with the underlying problem and the debts that result from it.

Legal Issues Around Gambling Debts

When we talk about debt from online gambling it is important to be clear about the nature of the debt, because who the money is owed to does make a difference. People are often unsure about the legality of debts from online gambling. In the UK you can gamble legally on credit and incur a debt, but this debt is not then enforceable through the law.

However, there is an important point to make here, which is that this only applies when you are using credit extended by the company offering the gambling (casino, bookie, etc). If you use a credit card company to pay for internet gambling, that is a legally enforceable debt the same as it would be in any other circumstance, because you have borrowed money from the credit card company, not the casino. It is now against the law in the US to use a credit card to pay for online gambling.

You will find that many credit cards will regard a payment to an internet gambling website as a cash advance. This is then clearly borrowing money from the card company and the debt you incur can be pursued through legal action. If you do use a credit card to pay for online gambling this way, you should be aware that cash advances on credit cards are almost always charged at a much higher rate of interest than normal credit for purchases.

How To Deal With Debts Caused By Gambling

In dealing with gambling debts, there are two separate issues to tackle. One is the debt itself, and the other is the habit of gambling that led to the debt. Even if the debt is dealt with, it is likely to build up again if the root cause is not tackled too. Let us first consider the problem of paying off the debt.

The principles for tackling debt are nearly always the same, irrespective of the causes of the debt. To permanently deal with debt you should not be considering borrowing more money or paying anyone to deal with your debt for you. These courses of action are likely to deepen your debt in the long run.

With a little advice, you can deal with your debts yourself, by contacting your creditors and agreeing terms for repayment that you can afford. There is clearly more to it than that, but it is beyond the scope of this particular article. The process is straightforward and allows you to take back control of your finances.

Factors Leading To Internet Gambling Debts

It may help to have an understanding of why some people can become addicted to online gambling. The following are often contributory factors:

Gambling can be thrilling, leading to an adrenalin rush and feelings that we want to recreate time and again.

Many addictive gamblers think that they can win money and that this will solve all their other problems. It actually just leads to more problems by creating debt, which can then make it seem even more important to win the money, creating a vicious circle.

Addiction to gambling can actually be a mental disorder, which can lead to a compulsive need to gamble.

Being addicted to online gambling is often associated with other personal difficulties, including depression and stress.

Online Gambling Debts – The Warning Signs You may have a problem if you can answer yes to any of the following questions:

When you are not gambling, do you think about gambling and how you are going to get back to it?

Have you ever missed work because of online gambling?

Do you feel the need to gamble again after winning or losing?

Is the length of time you spend on gambling getting longer and have you ever spent longer online than you thought you had?

Are you secretive about your gambling with family or friends and do you dislike other people bringing it up?

Practical Steps To Tackle Online Gambling Addiction If you think you may have a problem with online gambling, here are a few simple steps you can take to begin to reduce or stop the habit: